


Rocky Islands

by ailichi



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (also known as 'canon'), (i think it counts), Biting, Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, Canon Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Caring Hannibal Lecter, Dark Will Graham, Domestic Fluff, Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Established Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Extended Scene, First Kiss, Hannibal (TV) Season/Series 04, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Opera Date, POV Hannibal Lecter, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall, Post-Fall (Hannibal), References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Underwater Kiss, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham as Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), blink and you miss it but it's there, hannibal's a pathethic dork in this idk what to tell you, hannigram europe roadtrip, obnoxiously intellectual conversations about simple stuff, will graham is not a lesbian but he sure does quote a lot of fin de siecle french lesbian poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26614366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailichi/pseuds/ailichi
Summary: Thank you to @asighteafor the prompt - 'sirens'!It's Will Graham who knows what to do and where to go after the fall in the Atlantic. Will who saves Hannibal. Without a guiding hand in the dark, Hannibal would have been lost. After Hannibal and Will kill Dolarhyde together, they both know that they're bound together. Essentially, Hannibal worships the ground Will walks on and is incredulously grateful and humbled that Will wants to love him. They run away to Europe - together this time.I found the perfect tag for this and it's 'fluff without plot' - slight mentions of power dynamic stuff if you squint, though just a heads up.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 17
Kudos: 103





	Rocky Islands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asightea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asightea/gifts).



> “I know the sea too, but mine is a dark, dark sea” - [Émotion](https://ailichi.tumblr.com/post/625999716210065408/365filmsbyauroranocte-%C3%A9motion-nobuhiko-obayashi), Nobuhiko Obayashi (1966)
> 
> “First you will reach the Sirens, who bewitch all passersby. If anyone goes near them in ignorance and listens to their voices, that man will never travel back to his home, and never make his wife and children happy to have him back with them again” - The Odyssey, Homer, tr. Emily Wilson. Book XII, Lines 38-43
> 
> “It’s enough to lose your head / disappear, and not be seen again.” - MIKA, [Underwater](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC_CHR8vdWM&ab_channel=AndyMore).
> 
> “Long-suffering man / everyone can see / The water erodes the coast onto your death / until your island of life / is transparent and a hundred times as light as glass” - [Seachange](https://dreamprophet.tumblr.com/post/627728793915850752/poem-i-wrote-ages-ago-while-thinking-about-the), a poem by Will of @dreamprophet.
> 
> “The traitorous attraction that makes danger so alluring / makes your light smile even sweeter / Your face reminds me of the serene depths of the ocean / your eyes sang to me the song of the sirens.” - [Naïade Moderne](https://www.poetica.fr/poeme-5584/renee-vivien-naade-moderne/), Renée Vivien, tr. Caly

They are standing on the cliff-edge, in each other’s arms. Will’s hands find Hannibal’s shoulder again, as so many times before, and he clutches him for dear life. He can feel Hannibal’s arm curl around his waist and hover there, so lightly - undemandingly. Will moves closer, this time - he pulls Hannibal closer to him. Hannibal’s words echo in his ears - _See? This is all I wanted for you, Will. For both of us._ His breath comes ragged, and it drags fresh blood into his mouth, the taste bright against the blood still seeping from the inside of his cheek. 

“It’s beautiful,” he says, voice hoarse but steady, and Hannibal simply nods, out of breath as well. He’d be unable to say how much that means to him even if he could find his voice.

They listen to each other’s hard-fought breath for a moment longer.

.

Sublime experience relates to something that threatens; Hannibal has always wanted to know how Will would kill him. _With my hands_ , he said, and at the time, they both thought of the knife. Will had many sharp blades in his house, for fishing. When he was in Florence, Hannibal often thought of Will suffocating him - his hands were so strong, and competent. Strangulation is a slow way to kill someone, and you have to look into their eyes while you do it. Will was not good at eye-contact, and yet increasingly, Hannibal found that it was him that struggled to meet Will’s eyes, rather than the reverse. 

Now Will had his hands around Hannibal, holding him very tightly, and practically glowing with heat. Will Graham was pressed close to him, breathing heavily. Will’s weight in his arms, and his weight in Will’s. A few moments before, Will had been like Diomedes in Hannibal’s eyes: wading through battlefrenzy and madness, joyful, powerful, surrounded by death and creating more of it. Will Graham had stood before him, eyes flashing - protected by the goddess of war, but ready to challenge the oldest god of all - Aphrodite. And now he was simply holding him closely, like he would never let him go.

Will put his arms around Hannibal, and let his head rest on his chest, bloodied and immaculate. Will’s jaw was daubed with his own blood, and that of Dolarhyde’s - Hannibal could smell the blood in his hair, too. He wanted to catch Will by the throat and kiss him, but he was so tired; he just needed to feel Will close to him, really. He could hear the crashing of the waves so far below them, and he thought of the sirens, monstrous creatures from another, and older, sea. 

There was a strain of madness in the Greeks, something self-destructive - their oldest stories sketched the beauty of death, the allure of suicide that gleamed like a blade in the oily blackness. Their sea was a very dark one. Aphrodite, the most terrible of the gods, the first and oldest, rose from the sea - the Greeks had known that the sea was primal, and home to monsters - but that it was also the place where people were reborn - like Odysseus. Like Will. 

Will had told him, years ago, that he felt safe when he looked back at his house from a distance, when it looked like a ship on the ocean. Hannibal had felt that it was interesting, at the time, that Will could feel safe in the dense woods, on his own, in the middle of the night. Now it made sense to him - Will wanted to see safety at a distance. Will wanted to be cold and to see the darkness wash around him like a warm current in the ocean. 

Hannibal knew, although they had never talked about it, that Will liked the stories about sirens. Sirens were not beautiful creatures, originally. Daughters of the Muses, yes, and talented. But at the end of the day, they were animals - vicious, merciless, clothed in feathers where none ought to be. Nobody could agree whether their monstrosity - their wings - had been a punishment for their failure to protect their charge, Persephone, or a gift they had requested, something they wanted. Of course Will would like this story.

Hannibal looked into Will’s eyes and could see that Will loved him back. And when Will pulled him gently towards the abyss, Hannibal had no thought of resisting. All the tension of the exertion from killing Francis Dolarhyde vanished. Hannibal gave himself to Will utterly, and nestled a little closer to Will in anticipation. Will had never promised to kill him like this, so beautifully. Hannibal had no chance to express his devotion with anything but a gesture, but he rested his head on Will’s shoulder and knew that he understood it. Will gathered him ever closer into his arms and pulled them off the cliff, into the restless ocean, and Hannibal fell with him, underneath him, and with his head bowed, worshipful.  


The wisest of men lose all sense of self-preservation when they hear the sirens, because they sing about whatever you desire the most. Sailors understand that the sea wants to eat you whole, and that it seduces men easily. It can be torturous to see the ocean around you all the time, and never get the chance to slip into the waters, or give yourself completely to its depths. 

There is one desire that is greater than the wish to stay alive, and it is love. 

Hannibal felt transfixed by Will, and trapped - if willingly so. He felt his willpower melt away, and fell with Will, fell backwards into the abyss, grateful for Will’s touch in this moment, and knowing that neither of them were thinking about death, only how beautiful it was to fall together. Will made the poet’s decision, not the lover’s, but there was no question of having to forgive him. The fall made Hannibal love him more. 

They hit the water together, crashed through the waves and surface water with limbs hopelessly entangled. They held onto each other. Hannibal could feel Will’s hands gripping him tightly, leaving black marks on his arms, and he felt _held_ \- by the sea, by God, and most of all by Will. 

The air left his body, and Hannibal felt sure that he felt the impact on Will’s lungs as intimately as he did his own. A savage current pulled at his feet, and for one moment, he felt certain he was dead. It was hard to know which way was up and down, though he had his eyes open underwater - then Will’s hands tightened again, and hauled him away from danger. It didn’t matter, suddenly, where the surface was. He wanted to be with Will. Hannibal shut his eyes against the salt, let himself be pulled by Will, until they were beside one another. 

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion … Will put his hands to Hannibal’s face and kissed him. His mouth opened automatically, thoughtlessly, but there was air as well as sea-water in the kiss, and Hannibal felt himself come back to life. He could feel Will smile against his lips, and then a current dragged them both upwards and they broke the surface.

They were exhausted, wounds stinging, but still in each other’s arms. Hannibal managed to open his eyes again, and found Will, smiling triumphantly. The water had washed the blood off his face, and his hair was slicked to his skull, transfixing in the cleanliness of his beauty. 

Hannibal knew the coast, and pulled away from Will with reluctance - _there_ , he pointed. _There’s a beach_. Will nodded, and struck out in the right direction. The Atlantic looked black in the moonlight as they swam towards the coast. Soon they felt rocks beneath them, and it felt more than ever to Hannibal that they had drifted out of real-time and into the fantastical geography of Greek mythology, lost amongst islands that existed on no map. _Will might find his sirens here_ , Hannibal thought. The rocks cut their shins when they stumbled, gashed their hands as they pushed themselves away from them, until another powerful wave caught them and threw them on the shore, bruised but very much alive. 

Will was the first to stand up - Hannibal found that his hand was in the air, asking for help, though he had not thought about doing it. Will pulled Hannibal to his feet, as Hannibal had done for him on the clifftop, and looked at him, eyes dark.  


Hannibal felt himself burn, but regained himself.

“Back to the house?” he asked.

“The FBI will be there already,” said Will. “We were in the water for three quarters of an hour at least.”

Hannibal hadn’t thought it had been so long, but he accepted the answer. He coughed, hard, and felt the force tear his throat. 

Will and Hannibal realised that they were cold, desperately cold. The air shimmered glacially before their breath, and there was no steam rising from their soaked clothes - too cold for the water to go anywhere.

“I have a place we can go,” said Will. “But it’s a long way away.”

“I’ll follow you,” said Hannibal. “Lead on MacDuff.”

Will rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to kill you at my cabin in the woods, I promise.”

Hannibal simply smiled, lovesick - and conscious that he had swallowed salt-water at some point. 

“Okay, Will.”

.

Will led the way towards the far side of the beach, battered shoes sinking into the half-wet black sand. Hannibal ran after him, and caught his hand. Will squeezed back and kept walking.

“Tell me a story, Will,” said Hannibal, voice quiet.

Will laughed warmly. They reached the dunes, and stepped into the rough marram grass.

“Once upon a time,” he began, trailing his free hand in the grass, “There was a woman called Eurydice -”

.

They walked across the highway hand in hand, walked across flat country to the edge of the forest. It was after two o’clock in the morning, according to Hannibal’s watch. Will hesitated at the edge of the trees, and turned back to Hannibal. 

“It’s safe in the forest,” he said. “Though it doesn’t seem that way.”

“I’m not afraid, Will. I grew up in a forest, much older and denser than this one.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know,” said Hannibal; his face was carefully neutral, but his eyes were watching Will closely.

“There’s a cabin about a mile and a half from here,” said Will, “with a camping stove and a bed. We can stay there for the night, maybe two. No-one knows about it except myself.”

Hannibal dismissed the explanation with an easy wave of his hand, elegant even when battered and exhausted. 

“I trust you, Will.”

.

Will walked quickly now, with long confident strides. They found themselves at the cabin, which was small and modest, a wooden building, slowly being eaten up back by the forest.

“It’s not Forest Service,” Will reassured Hannibal. “It’s not on any maps.”

It was then that Hannibal understood.

“You built this,” he said.

“A long time ago, yes,” said Will, and let them in.

Inside was plain and tidy, with the cool air that one finds in monasteries and old temples. A well-swept floor and a few simple cups on the counter. They slept as they had fallen, wrapped around each other, Will on top. There was little room for any other arrangement on the narrow bed, and besides, they needed the warmth - winter was settling in.

In the morning, Will woke first, and realised he was lying across Hannibal, with his hand resting on his forehead -- just over the spot where his own face was scarred with a thin, ragged line.

“Wake up, Hannibal,” he said, quietly imperative.

His eyes opened. A moment of lingering sleepiness, and then he said:

“Good morning, Will.”

“Are you hungry?”

Hannibal shrugged and smiled. “I suppose I am,” he said, but he was looking only at Will.

Will kissed him, properly and slowly.

“Stay in bed,” said Will, “I’m going to get water.”

“Where else would I go?”

Will laughed, recognising the echo of his own words, and spared Hannibal one more glance before he caught up the clean-scrubbed bucket under the window and left.

Hannibal sat up against the wall, but he obediently stayed in bed, carefully smoothing out the blanket and pillows. The place had an empty smell, but very clean - the scent of wood and wet metal. There was nothing he could think of to do before Will got back - the camping stove had no fuel beside it. Will clattered in the door soon enough. He had water, and a handful of dry twigs, but he dropped them at the threshold.

He went and knelt on the bed, caught Hannibal’s face in his hands and kissed him again, and this time, Hannibal remembered to kiss back, and remembered to put his hands on Will’s neck, to keep him close. Will put his hands on Hannibal’s hips and held him where he was, just above the bullet-wound in his right side, so as not to hurt him.

He could feel Hannibal arch up to meet him, desperate for more touch, but Will turned away. He walked back to the door, tearing the cuff from his shirt. He dipped the scrap of fabric in the water, and brought it back to the bed, and dabbed at Hannibal’s face with it. The water was still cold from the stream. Will caressed Hannibal’s head, kissed where he had cleaned, and moved down, cleaning Hannibal’s throat, very carefully. Blood and grime came away on the cuff. Will swiped it across his own lips and smiled.

Will dropped the scrap over the side of the bed, where it lay forgotten for a good while.

.

Will made black tea, and they had a biscuit each, sitting on the edge of the bed - the floor was too cold to sit there for long.

“You know what I was thinking of, walking here last night?” said Will, blowing on his tea noisily.

“What?”

“Sirens. I always liked the stories, but I felt that those who succumbed to the temptations were weak, somehow. Like I would be able to resist.” There was no accusation in his voice.

“Sometimes we see the actions of others as weakness, because other people taking for themselves what we desire for ourselves strikes us as self-indulgent,” said Hannibal.

“Orpheus’ method was better, don’t you think, than Odysseus’? Playing his own music to drown out that of the sirens, instead of having to endure the temptation when you have no intention of giving in.”

“Did Odysseus not want to give in?”

“No. He wanted to go home. Even with Circe, he wanted Ithaka. That was his strength, but it made him weak, when the sirens sang to him about home.”

“Then Orpheus’ solution may have been more effective. But it was also inelegant.”

Will had no response to that, because it was true. 

“The word _siren_ comes from the Greek verb for to entangle or to bind,” Hannibal continued. 

A pause. 

“The danger is that of losing your freedom.” He looked at Will as steadily as he could. 

“Odysseus survived hearing their song because he bound himself willingly. Tied himself to the mast and told his companions to restrain him tighter if he asked to be set free. I did not do that. I did not _want_ to do that.”

Hannibal couldn’t say anything to such a declaration of love. He put down his cup of tea on the floor, very precisely and gracefully, and lay down on the bed again, his head in Will’s lap.

“Let’s go somewhere new,” said Will, petting through Hannibal’s still-short hair.

Hannibal nodded.

“Greece, maybe. I have a little place on the coast, near the Turkish border.”

“Naturally you do,” said Will.

.

Will’s boat was still moored in a frigid Baltic cove, and a flight from the United States was out of the question. With not a little difficulty, they made their way across the state, as far as Lake Erie, walked across the Long Point reserve and from there to Toronto. They took a rental four-wheel drive northwards, and crossed from Canada to Greenland. From then on, they could take their time; six weeks after Hannibal’s escape, they got a flight from Narsarsuaq to Tórshavn.  


“A normal car,” Will warned Hannibal at Copenhagen.

“A decent one, though,” said Hannibal, pointing out a Mazda.

“Yeah, fine,” said Will. “I’m feeling indulgent.” Hannibal bowed slightly in mock-gratitude.

The time seemed short. Hannibal drove, and explained how his family had married with the Kapodistria dynasty (“I’m supposed to know who that is?” said Will), suggested places to go in the Balkans on the way (“I’m not climbing up four thousands steps to see some wall from the top, Hannibal”), and told Will how well they’d eat in Greece (“Now on that matter, I believe you”).

They stopped in small towns, and Hannibal bought records - “Just the classics, Will, nothing recognisable,” he said, with two Bach recordings and a Shostakovich concerto in his hands. Then Will had to drive for a while so that Hannibal could fiddle with the radio - he insisted he could get the Budapest classical music station from the Austrian border, which he couldn’t. They ended up listening to an old pop music station. 

.

When they reached Prague, Hannibal took Will to the theatre, to see Stravinsky’s _Perséphone_. Will wore a sleek black suit, the picture of elegance. He was looking forward to the evening.

“It looks very natural on you,” said Hannibal with a smile, smoothing the lapel of Will’s shirt.

“Tell me, Hannibal, about the opera,” said Will, unable to do anything with the compliment but tuck it away to remember fondly later.

“ _Melodrama_ ,” Hannibal corrected gently, his hands still lingering at Will’s waist. “Persephone runs away from her guardian-companions -”

“- the sirens?” said Will, smiling.

“The very same-” said Hannibal, his voice warm, and pressed his lips to Will's throat.

“-and she’s happy to join Hades in the Underworld in this one?” asked Will.

A troubled look crossed Hannibal’s face.

“For a while. She fell in love with a vision, and then her dreams came to pass. She was queen for a season, but returns to be with her earthly partner.”

“You’re breaking my heart here,” said Will, but he was laughing. Will could be cruel when he wanted to be.

“The opera-

“-melodrama,” corrected Will smartly.

Hannibal smiled.

“- the melodrama,” he echoed, “ends with Persephone reminding her earthly companions that she cannot stay forever above ground. She says _Mercury will not find me rebellious. I need no orders. I will willingly go where love leads me. I will walk down the long staircase that leads to the depths of human sin_. And she returns to Hades.”

“Maybe forever,” said Will, and pulled Hannibal closer. “If Hades looked as good in a suit as a certain man of my acquaintance.”

The Divadlo Hybernia lay at the centre of Prague’s old town, the steps to the entrance garlanded with pink flowers, soft golden light spilling from the front doors onto the street below. One couple slipped unremarked-upon through all the others. Hannibal presented their tickets in simple Czech and gave Will his arm. Will flashed him a small smile.

In their seats, surrounded by the opulent silence of the rest of the opera crowd, Will basked in Hannibal’s quiet, devoted attention as he traced where they were in the libretto for Will - stopping only when he picked up the storyline himself. At the start of the second act, Will put his hand in Hannibal’s and kept it there. Nobody around them minded that silent gesture, though they got a few disapproving glances when they returned from the intermission looking altogether too cheerful, with a slightly undone look about their clothes. It didn’t even occur to Hannibal to smooth down his hair where Will had messed it up. 

And if Hannibal saw tears in Will’s eyes when Persephone made her final speech and asked the world before her, _Do you imagine that a loving heart can emerge unscathed from Hades?_ , then he didn’t say anything.

.

They crossed the Carpathians in early November, and reached their house by the second Saturday of the month. It was late evening, and Will was driving, Hannibal playing navigator. They pulled up in front of the house and Hannibal stepped out neatly; Will was still checking the lights were off as Hannibal opened his door and offered him his hand. Will took it happily - he resisted (in vain) Hannibal’s efforts to carry him over the threshold. Hannibal swept him into his arms too quickly to avert it.

“Put me down,” said Will, all mock-outrage. He was laughing.

Hannibal put Will down on the kitchen counter and kissed Will for the first time.

It was a lovely house, warm and welcoming, despite having lain empty for the best part of thirty years. They were very in love there. Hannibal bought Will honeyed _pasteli_ and fed him bite-size pieces by hand. Will took Hannibal to Athens and they wandered around the Acropolis together. Hannibal planted golden pomegranate-trees in the garden, which made Will laugh and tell him that he wasn’t worried about Persephone’s timetables any more. They drank sweet wine in the evenings, and went to bed very early most nights.

Hannibal made all sorts of promises to Will, but the first one was - “On our first night together you went to sleep hungry. That is never going to happen again.” 

A few weeks after that, Will was sitting at the seashore, watching the waves. Hannibal sat behind him, arms around his waist, legs tucked under Will’s knees, head on his shoulder. The tide was only starting to come in, but it already lapped at their legs. Will looked over the water to where the sun was rising - eastwards, to Troy.

“The stories about sirens are about wanting something too much,” said Will quietly.

“Or about not resisting desire, even when we know the source is monstrous,” said Hannibal.

“You’re talking about us, darling,” said Will directly.

“I am, _tesore_ , yes.” Hannibal. 

Will laughed gently and turned around. 

“It’s like - _the traitorous attraction that makes danger so alluring_ -”

“- _makes your light smile even sweeter,_ ” finished Hannibal.

Will took Hannibal’s hands from around his side and pushed Hannibal down onto the sand and kissed him; bit his lip and tasted blood. Hannibal gasped and kissed back, hands at Will’s face in an aspect of prayer. If his hands trembled, they didn't mention it. Will broke the kiss, breathless and flushed.

“Hannibal,” he said, with the zeal of the converted. “Hannibal. Back home. I want you now.”

“Yes, Will. We’re going home now,” replied Hannibal, on breath just as heavy as Will’s.

**Author's Note:**

> References
> 
> \-- “In the classical tradition, sublime experience relates to something that threatens,” Mark Grief, Essays Against Everything
> 
> \--Passage about Diomedes’ battlefrenzy, and his willingness to attack Aphrodite - Homer’s Iliad, throughout Book V
> 
> \-- “He made the poet’s decision, not a lover’s” = Portrait d’Une Jeune Fille en Feu, dir. Céline Sciamma, about Orpheus and Eurydice
> 
> \-- Rebirth of Odysseus = Homer’s Odyssey, Book XII, Odysseus is ship-wrecked and spends nine days adrift in the sea before finding Calypso’s island
> 
> \-- Hannibal saying “Lead on MacDuff” = popular (though misquoted) line from Macbeth
> 
> \-- Stravinsky’s Perséphone tells the story with great nuance and she’s afforded a lot of free will in it, even in sacrifice. It's Will Graham as Persephone as Christ.
> 
> \-- “The traitorous attraction that makes danger so alluring / makes your light smile even sweeter,” re-quoting from the Vivien poem in the inscription.
> 
> *
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I would really appreciate kudos and/or comments <3 Have a lovely day! x


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